processing

Diminished Furs

Friendly Potential

Neu-House

to be lestened

Limited 12" & digital out November 2013.

A1: Bandini
A2: Bunker Hill
B:   Working In Four

PWF009

Written & produced by Pacific Horizons in Los Angeles, 2012/13.

Bandini EP (clips)

Frankey & Sandrino - Acamar

Hop High/Here in the Vineyard

Here in the Vineyard

The music Aurora Halal creates is informed by many different disciplines. She is a producer, but also a videographer and visual artist who has worked on films about modular synth godfather Morton Subotnick amongst others. She is also the force behind Brooklyn’s Mutual Dreaming party series as well as the Sustain-Release festival. In just a couple of years she has cooked up an expressive and experimental techno sound—solo and with the likes of Ital—on labels such as Lovers Rock and her own Mutal Dreaming Recordings. Oppressive and foggy, her distorted, imperfect sounds made up of heavy drums and scurrying synths have taken her to plenty of remarkable live gigs all over the world. Now she steps up to our mix series with equal aplomb.

Dekmantel Podcast

Dekmantel Podcast 106 - Aurora Halal

Lyrics by Plato's Symposium
Diotima's speech
Music by Venus Volcanism & Tripolar Cell

Tripolar Cell & Venus Volcanism-Diotima

<a target="_blank" href="https://pumpyoursound.com/fangate/detail/33484-acapella-classic-house-vol-1">Acapella Classic House Vol. 1</a>

Acapella Classic House Vol. 1 (FREE DOWNLOAD)

It's Thursday and boy are you in for a treat. Olsen is an up and coming producer set to release a new EP on Perfect Motion on the 25th of August. The EP is an elegant assortment of gracious twists and turns as he experiments with the boundaries between modern day jazz, electronics and club sounds. The EP is perhaps one of the most intriguing to emerge this summer and there is a sense of promise in the air. 

Sandboards are a duo from New Zealand with a promising future having already been predicted for success by those Bicep boys. The pair step up with a gorgeous remix of a track titled "Heavy Dreamer" which we can imagine will be played heavily over the next few months. A great all round EP.

Bloom

PREMIERE: Olsen - Heavy Dreamer (Sandboards Remix)[Perfect Motion]

PREORDER: https://grouprhoda.bandcamp.com/album/wilderless
Group Rhoda is the solo electronic music project of Mara Barenbaum, based out of Oakland, California. The project started around 2009 with a debut album ‘Out of Time, Out of Touch’ in 2012 on Night School Records and ‘12th House’ in 2013 on Not Not Fun. She is also one half of Max and Mara who released the album ‘Less Ness’ in 2013 on Dark Entries Records. She is committed to live performance, situated within the analog synthesizer and drum machine medium.

‘Wilderless’ is Group Rhoda’s third full length and first for Dark Entries Records. Each of the these 7 songs draw forth tones of tropical darkwave and soft industrial;  while negating the sound of conformity and control. The album explore themes of societal and spiritual displacement, contemporary serfdom, the depths of empathy, regeneration through destruction, and the tyranny of claiming recognition and power. Lyrics are poetically expressed through allegory and explore archetypes rooted more in abstract observation rather than hard line experience. Through transgression and imagination, Group Rhoda explores the arc of songwriting interwoven into stark electronic environments; and creates a bridge between the corporeal and the dream worlds.

Each song was mixed by Mark Pistel at Room 5 in San Francisco and mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. Each LP is packaged in a jacket featuring a colorful custom made collage by Hugo Barros and includes a full color sticker and digital download card.

Wilderless

Group Rhoda - Wilderless LP (snippets)

Eighty years ago, the "alt-right" proudly called themselves by a different name: fascists. The first war they launched was in July 1936, when right-wing Spanish military generals attempted to overthrow the democratically elected, left-leaning government of the Spanish Republic. The coup initially failed, but the generals, aided by Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini, transformed their effort into the bloody three-year long Spanish Civil War, a dress rehearsal for World War II. Though the Republic ultimately lost the war, its defenders organized a response that will endure forever as a testament to solidarity: the creation of the International Brigades, tens of thousands of volunteers, from more than fifty countries, who journeyed to Spain to fight fascism. These included 2,800 Americans who came to be called the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. 
On October 6th, sui generis Brooklyn-based band Barbez, in collaboration with singer Velina Brown, release a remarkable tribute to those volunteers called For Those Who Came After: Songs of Resistance from the Spanish Civil War. These inventive and moving new renderings of the indelible protest songs of the International Brigades will be released on the pioneering Boston-based label Important Records. The album was recorded live at the Japan Society, in 2016, at the annual reunion of veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, an event that has been held in New York since the 1940s. The highlight of the reunion has always been the singing of these songs, which were led on several occasions by Pete Seeger, a lifelong friend of the Lincoln veterans, who recorded many of them for his iconic 1944 album, Songs of the Lincoln Battalion.
Barbez draws on avant-rock, contemporary classical and folk music styles such as cumbia and flamenco to reinvent iconic songs like “L’Internationale” (The International) and “Viva la Quince Brigada” (Long Live the Fifteenth Brigade) for a new generation of listeners. The album features the group’s stellar musicians: clarinetist Peter Hess (Philip Glass Ensemble), theremin virtuoso Pamelia Stickney (David Byrne), marimba and vibraphone player Danny Tunick (the Clean), guitarist Dan Kaufman (Rebecca Moore), violinist Catherine McRae (the Quavers), bassist Peter Lettre (Shearwater), and drummer John Bollinger (Sway Machinery); with vocalist Velina Brown (San Francisco Mime Troupe) and special guests Dafna Naphtali on background vocals and Sebastiaan Faber on trumpet. It’s the first Barbez record since 2013’s acclaimed Bella Ciao (Tzadik), which was inspired by ancient Roman Jewish melodies and the Italian Resistance during World War II. Like each of the group’s previous five albums, For Those Who Came After was mixed by the incomparable Martin Bisi (Swans, Sonic Youth, John Zorn) at his legendary B.C. Studio in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Live engineering was performed by Damon Whittemore (Paul McCartney, Andrew Bird). Released on vinyl and CD, the album also features extensive liner notes by award-winning author Adam Hochschild, who recently published a groundbreaking history of the Spanish Civil War.

For Those Who Came After: Songs Of Resistance from the Spanish Civil War

Barbez - Venga Jaleo - For Those Who Came After - CD/LP - Oct. 20, 2017

Recorded in 1978

Taken from the album 'Tremblements...' released as LP and Download

François Bayle 'Tremblement De Terre Très Doux' (excerpt) (REGRM 019)

Recorded in 1991

Taken from the album 'Grand Bruit / Stop! l'horizon' released as LP and Download

Christian Zanési 'Grand Bruit' (excerpt) (REGRM 020)

Taken from 'I Can Be a Clay Snapper'
Order: https://goo.gl/3hCLGz
tak:til / glitterbeat

Hailing from Slovenia, Širom play vividly textured and (mostly) imagined, instrumental folk musics. Handmade and global instrumentation meets fearless sound exploration. 

Slovenia’s miniature, but incredibly diverse landscapes, echo through its distinctive cultural, historic and linguistic traits. When thinking about Širom’s geographical trajectories, as well as their musical ebb and flow, one has to consider the abundance of water that can be found in the individual regions where they come from. Cascading mountain stream lilt, lazy lowland river meandering and the mysteriously vanishing waters of Karst are most certainly inscribed into Samo Kutin’s, Iztok Koren’s and Ana Kravanja’s childhood memories and subsequently, their remarkable musical art. 

The band’s emergent sound oscillates between a wide array of acoustic folk sounds and contemporary post rock meditations, often drifting from improvisation to structured composition and then back. It is described by the members themselves as imaginary folk or folk from a parallel universe. “Our music creates emotional landscapes. When I was still painting every day (Ana holds a degree in painting) I was trying to paint my dreams but that didn’t work out,” Ana remembers. “I discovered that by using an abstract image I can draw nearer to what I felt in my dreams. Our music is based on a similar principle.”

According to Samo, the guiding concepts of their music-making are: “To play on acoustic instruments, to work with repetition and a common sound. Each of us can play a simple thing, but the overall result is that a complex thing comes to life. The quality of sound depends on the combination of the instruments and that’s why we modify and prepare instruments or create our own.”

As an avid sound-seeker, Samo began to develop an interest in building instruments out of everyday objects like drawers, computer boxes and other “junk” (as he lovingly calls his creations) as well as re-tooling the ones he brought back from his globetrotting adventures that have included personal encounters with local musicians in India, Morocco, Mali, Greece and elsewhere. 

Ana, who also nurtures a very personal relationship with music paraphernalia, adds: “There is a different attitude at play if you make an instrument yourself. It already tells you a story. If you buy it, it takes longer to get to know it, to tame it.”

In the little village of Lesno Brdo, tucked in the rolling hills ten kilometers south of Ljubljana, Ana and Samo organize music performances and festivals on a farm they rent, and divide their time between music making and vegetable farming. A close connection with nature is also important to Iztok who now resides in the capital city. “It’s a sort of a contact with the past but it also has its own life in the present.” 

Fearlessly textured sonic landscapes – both linked to and unbound by – the past and present, geography and tradition, the real and imagined. Hypnotic, otherworldly and epic. 

Širom’s music moves like the restless waters of their homeland. No matter how hushed or slow it may seem, it is never ever standing still. 
  
Širom are: Iztok Koren – banjo, three string banjo, bass drum, percussion, chimes, balafon, various objects // Ana Kravanja – violin, viola, ribab, cünbüs, balafon, ngoma drum, mizmar, various objects, voice // Samo Kutin – lyre, balafon, one string bass, frame drums, brač, gongoma, mizmar, various objects, voice

I Can Be a Clay Snapper

Boats, Biding, Beware!

Širom - Boats, Biding, Beware! (Čolni, Čakam, Čúvaj!)

This is a little bit of a rarity for us - usually acting as a conduit for more 'underground' (damn that word) entities, we very seldom get the opportunity to work with such an industry institution. Well; apparently now we do - with this feature, premiering k2k's remix cut from XOA's stunning new EP on the seismic @Soundway-Records.

'Diaspora/Echoes' in itself is a stand-alone and sophisticated piece - sporting wonderfully woven disparate textures, showcasing producer, Nick Tyson's(XOA) technical nous and artistic maturity. On remix duty is FH Favourite, k2k who is in good company as an XOA remixee - with Byron The Aquarius, Glenn Astro and Ben Hauke all having worn the proverbial 'XOA' T-shirt.

Slightly straying from the Red Bull Music Academy graduate's usual four-on-the-floor driven hallmark, k2k ensures her mark is well and truly made, with this spellbinding 2-steppin' re-imagination. Less a floor-filled set builder - more an enchanting burner for the late/early hours. Seventh heaven kinda stuff. 

Artists: https://soundcloud.com/k2kokay & https://soundcloud.com/xoamusic
Label: https://soundcloud.com/Soundway-Records
Release date: September 22nd
Pre-order: https://soundway.lnk.to/diasporaechoes

PREMIERE: XOA - Echoes (k2k Remix) [Soundway Records]

Thoughts of an Introvert, Pt. 1

Mycetozoa

Wish You Were Here

Wish You Were Here (Blond:ish Morning Remix Edit) [feat. Msaki]

Superdiscoteca

Talk to Me

Alex Kennon makes his welcome return to Saved this month with two killer cuts on the brand new ‘I Can't Get You’ EP. Already making serious waves with productions on labels including Rebellion, Crosstown Rebels, VIVa and Moan; Alex has proven himself as a respected DJ and producer within the Tech House scene with his tracks having been supported by A-List artists; Kölsch, Solomun, Nic Fanciulli, Steve Lawler and Tale of Us and a successful Best Breakthrough win at the 2018 DJ Awards in Ibiza. The EP kicks off with ‘I Can't Get You’, a track which oozes sophistication with intricate drum fills, an infectious groove and hypnotic, sultry vocals. ‘The Lover’ follows suit with rolling drum grooves, chopped vocal textures, whirring synths and an energetic bassline to get the dancefloor moving. Enjoy!

I Can't Get You EP

Download / Stream

Alex Kennon - The Lover

Buried under layers of blankets, attempting to sleep in -45 degree wind chill, TWINS’ Matt Weiner was shivering on the couch in mixengineer Jeremiah Meece’s living room. He’d already named his record ‘New Cold Dream’ before traveling to Chicago on the coldest day since 1985 to mix down the recordings; the fact that the city was in the midst of a polar vortex when he arrived was just a bit of cosmic irony. Still, this frosty scene is a perfect microcosm for the album itself - New Cold Dream is, in his words, about “staying warm in a cold world.”
Though TWINS’ sound has always drawn on synth-pop, his second LP takes the ‘80s influence a step further, interpreting our current climate of fear and uncertainty as a direct result of the economic policies set into motion during the Reagan/Thatcher era. The conditions under which New Cold Dream was created serve as evidence that the New Gold Dream that Simple Minds were singing about in 1982 has coalesced into something much darker. In the 21st century, the idea of the “American Dream” has been replaced by a cold new frontier. If life in America is a new sort of Wild West, then Weiner is its gothic cowboy chronicler, staring into the vast expanse of rising inequality, social stratification and environmental collapse. Still, NCD isn’t a pessimistic record - Weiner seeks to embrace the unforgiving nature of these realities. Balancing our optimism with cynicism, oscillating between hot and cold. This duality can be heard throughout the record - from the foreboding refrain of “Slow Decline” to the sublime choral tones of “Misuse.” Ominous, industrial beats offset dreamy synth melodies, while Weiner’s fervid vocals reconcile tensions throughout. New Cold Dream is a thoughtful yet heartfelt amalgamation of dark electro, synth pop, and industrial dance music. “Lie Awake,” an irresistibly classic dark-electro song underpinned by an infectious dance beat, embodies this balance perfectly. Past influences abound - from John Maus to Bauhaus, from Suicide to Depeche Mode - but this record lives distinctly in the present.
Hot vs. cold, fear vs. courage, light vs. dark. TWINS finds the similarities in what appear to be opposites, and invites us to do the same. 
“I want people to feel moved; both moved to get up and move and also moved in a deeper sense of connecting with ideas that may not have made sense before,” Weiner says of his project. It’s music for contemplating while dancing, for letting go while you hold on tight. As we grow tired of a world that deals in extremes, we wake up to a new cold dream.

Artist: @thatwhichisnotsaid
Title: New Cold Dream II
Label: @2mrecords
Format: Vinyl & Digital
Release date: 25 October 2019
Pre-order: https://thatwhichisnotsaid.bandcamp.com/album/new-cold-dream

New Cold Dream

Premiere #65 TWINS - New Cold Dream Pt. II [2MR]

Cititrax is honored to announce a new EP entitled Die Stimme Drängt by Schwefelgelb, a techno body music duo from Berlin. Known for their bombastic strobe-lit live performances and immaculate studio production, their sound can be described as heavy, apocalyptic electronic body music for the club. They often play their synths intentionally detuned, and find harmony in disharmonious melodies paired with strong, steady rhythms and sparse, abstract vocals. They have had the opportunity to tour all over Europe as well as America and East Asia several times now. It is no surprise that their releases sell out quickly and are often re-pressed due to their popularity in the techno scene and beyond. The Die Stimme Drängt EP is their first original EP since 2018, the year they put out their highly acclaimed ‘Aus Den Falten’ which fiercely hit the DJ circuit and left a great impression. Their music has been played by DJs like Silent Servant, The Hacker, Helena Hauff, Veronica Vasicka, Regis, Samuel Kerridge, Phase Fatale, Adam X, Front 242, Jensen Interceptor, Tommy Four Seven and more.

Schwefelgelb’s Die Stimme Drängt EP is limited to 500 copies pressed on fluorescent yellow 160-gram vinyl, accompanied by a digital download for all copies purchased via our site. Release date: February 11, 2020.

Die Stimme Drängt

CITI027 Schwefelgelb - Die Stimme Drängt EP (samples)

The Dark Entries Record Label : Resuscitating the 80s Underground

Group Rhoda - Wilderless LP (snippets)

darkentriesrecords